Debunk: Palm not halting Pre / Pixi production, just on hold for Chinese New Year
Oh boy. Research firm OTR Global is making some waves today with a report claiming that Palm ordered all Pre and Pixi manufacturing to be halted, but apparently they didn’t look at a calendar — or, you know, call Palm. We just talked to Palm and here’s the real deal: Pre and Pixi orders were halted for the Chinese New Year on the 14th, and production will go back online at the end of the month. That’s the whole story — Palm also told us that production for Verizon was ramped up early in the year to cover the downtime, so there shouldn’t be any effect on availability. We’ll be getting an official statement soon, we’ll update as soon as we get it.
Update: Here’s the official word from Derick Mains, Palm’s director of corporate communications:
Palm regularly adjusts its product manufacturing levels to manage inventory. In anticipation of the Verizon Wireless launch and Chinese New Year, we increased production levels prior to February, and anticipate ramping production back up after the Chinese New Year ends.
Move along, nothing else to see here.
Debunk: Palm not halting Pre / Pixi production, just on hold for Chinese New Year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Palm says long taps are ‘meta-taps,’ impresses Solaris admins worldwide
What do you call a long press in the gesture area on a webOS phone? Well, it doesn’t matter, because unless you said “meta-tap” you’re wrong. That’s what Palm has decreed such a touch will be called and so it shall be called — at least officially. A long press in that area plus a key, like X, C or V to cut, copy, or paste, has been given this moniker by Palm in something of a nod to the concept of a UNIX meta key, a keyboard modifier that works like the Apple Command key or Windows Alt and Ctrl keys. Why bother with the clarification? Well, for one thing, “meta-tap X” is a heck of a lot easier to type than “hold your finger in the notification area and then press X on the keyboard,” and that’s the sort of efficiency we can get behind.
Palm says long taps are ‘meta-taps,’ impresses Solaris admins worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
FCC paper trail suggests AT&T getting Pre in May?
Palm still won’t really fess up to it, but AT&T was more than happy to drop the bomb back at CES that it’s picking up webOS for the first time in 2010 — and a little creative connecting-of-the-dots gives us some idea of when we might see the gear hit the streets. The company’s Pre with North American 3G — model number P100UNA — is already in use by Telcel in Mexico, but confidentiality in its US FCC filing doesn’t expire until mid-May. Why does that matter? Historically, Palm’s US releases have come very close to their FCC confidentiality lifts, meaning that we could see this thing on AT&T by the time Summer rolls around. Of course, in light of the Pre Plus, it’d be pretty sweet if AT&T just moved on to the next big thing in Palm’s pipeline, but we certainly wouldn’t put it past ‘em to launch outdated equipment.
FCC paper trail suggests AT&T getting Pre in May? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Verizon advertising says Droid is for men, Pre is for women (video)
If you ask us, the Palm Pre Plus pretty much sells itself. So if we were working out a promo campaign for it, we’d just display the competitive pricing front and center and get the hell out of the product’s way. But that just wouldn’t do for Verizon. After all the machismo it attached to the Droid, the wireless provider is back with a set of ads for the Pre Plus targeted at the modern lady. We’re not told why two slabs of plastic and silicon with comparable sliding keyboards and similar internals must be compartmentalized by gender, but we don’t really care. The new ads are crazy enough in themselves, so just go see ‘em after the break.
Continue reading Verizon advertising says Droid is for men, Pre is for women (video)
Verizon advertising says Droid is for men, Pre is for women (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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WebOS homebrew MyTether app updated, brings WiFi hotspots to Verizon Palms w/o the extra subscription
Since the last time we mentioned it, the MyTether app for WebOS phones has gone up in price from a requested $10 donation to $14.95, but that’s still considerably cheaper than Verizon’s $40 per month Mobile Hotspot plan. We’re still leery about what usage/overusage could mean for your contract & bill, but a new beta version has been posted that officially supports the Pre Plus and according to the developer “makes use of the API calls behind MHS” to let it work more smoothly. Even with the Pre’s openness to hackery we had some issues getting the beta installer to operate on our Windows 7 machine but once it was installed it worked as promised, giving comparable speeds to a dedicated EV-DO card on the same network. Other new features include automatic tracking of data usage and the ability to manage connected devices directly on the app. Other than some compatibility issues with WebOS updates there hasn’t seemed to be any blowback from Sprint or Palm on this app so far, we’ll see if Verizon has any issues with its premium priced turf being encroached upon.
Gallery: MyTether beta
WebOS homebrew MyTether app updated, brings WiFi hotspots to Verizon Palms w/o the extra subscription originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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VisualBoyAdvance turns your Palm Pre into a Game Boy emulator
A certain UK bank operates a delightfully dorky advertising campaign whose slogan is “we give you extra.” Well, in the case of mobile software communities, that’s exactly the case. From jailbroken iPhones to PS One-emulating HD2s to multitouch-enabled browsing on the Nexus One, the one group of people we know we can truly rely on are other geeks. So let’s salute those heroes once more, in recognition of the VisualBoyAdvance — a webOS-based emulator for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. The former two categories are said to play smooth as you like, whereas the Advance stuff suffers from slight slowdown at present. We’ve only seen it playing on a Pre, but there should be no reason why your Pixi wouldn’t be allowed in on this party. A quick video demo awaits after the break, and the source link has all the installation details you’ll need.
Continue reading VisualBoyAdvance turns your Palm Pre into a Game Boy emulator
VisualBoyAdvance turns your Palm Pre into a Game Boy emulator originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
First look: Google Voice’s improved Web app for iPhone
Google still can’t seem to get a Google Voice application onto the iPhone, so the company went ahead and launched it as a Web app. The mobile page was rolled out on Tuesday, optimized for both the iPhone and Palm’s WebOS devices, bringing users some of the same functionality that Android users already enjoy natively.
The Web app is an extension of Google’s already-existing mobile offerings for Gmail and Google Calendar, and requires the user to log in using his or her Google account. We gave the offerings a run through on an iPhone and came away happy with what Google has been able to accomplish without a native app.
Palm Pre Gets Unofficial Google Voice App [Google Voice]
Though buggy and as barebones as it gets, an unofficial Palm Pre Google Voice app called dkGoogleVoice will let you use your GV number to call or text from your contacts, and feel superior to iPhone owners. Big win! [PreCentral]
Living With the Pre: 23 Things Palm Could Improve By Software [Smartphones]
I love the Palm Pre. I’ve had it for just over a month, and it’s probably the best phone I’ve ever owned. But there are some nagging shortcomings and idiosyncrasies I think they could theoretically fix easily, by software.
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Advanced Synergy Account Sync Features
Synergy is an undoubtedly cool feature. What isn’t so cool are all the garbage contacts that end up on your phone as a result of syncing Gmail, Facebook and AIM. There has to be a way to filter out contacts via grouping. And there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to manually delete contacts.
Cut/Copy/Paste
Merely including Cut/Copy/Paste isn’t good enough, Palm. And your implementation on the Pre is laughable (especially compared to the iPhone). As if requiring a keyboard macro to highlight text wasn’t ridiculous enough, highlighting text on this phone isn’t the easiest thing in the world. And I also want to be able to Cut and Copy any text I want—not just the stuff in text entry fields.
How about a long press next to the desired text to activate the copy mode, and more responsive highlighting as I drag my finger (is that too much to ask?). However, I do like the feature where you hold your finger on the gesture area, then hit x, c or v to execute the cut/copy/paste, even if an on screen element would be easier.
Customizable Sounds
This isn’t really THAT big of a deal, but some people like to customize their phones to the nines. I’m sure Palm kept system sounds on lockdown for UX purposes, but is it really that big of a deal? Some people just want to hear the Dragonzord flute jingle everytime they get a text.
Gmail
Palm’s Gmail app is pretty good for the most part, but confusing navigation elements (like only being able to get back to the inbox/main screen via gesture bar), the lack of threaded emails and the inability to search through your mail leaves it spinning its wheels second rate gmail client—much like the iPhone’s mail app. Also, support for hosted Gmail accounts would be nice as well. It’s not that hard. And speaking of search, that brings me to my next point…
Universal Search
The framework for Universal Search is fine—start typing from the home screen, and contacts, apps and Google results begin to populate—but what about the contents of text messages/chat transcripts/emails, media files and even bookmarked sites? Also, an option to search Facebook would also be amazing. Just putting that out there.
Messaging
I’m glad I can connect to AIM, Gtalk and SMS and manage them all from the same screen. That said, there are times I want to be able to log out of just one service and not all of them. Palm seems to think otherwise and its annoying. Support for other services, like MSN and Facebook chat, would also be cool. But I wouldn’t call them essential quite yet.
Hardware Access for Apps
The Mojo SDK is disappointing to say the least. Yes, the initial apps are impressive for using little more than web standards, but they still can’t compete with native ones that have hardware access (for the time being at least).
Facebook App
Using Facebook in the WebOS browser sucks. End of story. I want a standalone app. With camera access. Will not accept anything less.
In-Browser PDF Handling
Palm has a handy dandy PDF reader included with WebOS that lets you read the files. But you know what happens when you click a PDF link in a browser? Nothing. It won’t even download the file onto your Phone. It just says it can’t open it. If it’s too much to switch over to the PDF app from the browser, downloading the file should at least be an option.
On-Screen Cursor and Text Entry Fields One of the few features of WebOS that’s downright unpolished is the handling of text entry fields. Using the screen tap or the up arrow key+drag to move the cursor around a chunk of text isn’t terrible, but it just feels like it could be better. I’m sure Apple has all sorts of patents out on that magnifying glass feature, but Palm has to be able to think of something similar.
Secondly, if you tap on a text entry field, it neither launches into a subscreen, nor zooms in one bit. If you’re zoomed out, and then tap on an entry field, you have to manually zoom in. There are worse things a mobile OS could screw up, but it’s the little things done right that also make an OS great.
GPS Toggling From the Home Screen
Do any smartphone power users leave their GPS on all the time? I’m guessing no. That’s why Palm needs to make it quicker and easier to turn GPS on/off. Having to go into Launcher, then over to Location Services utility, then toggling it off requires way more thought/navigation than necessary. Why not just have a GPS on/off on the homescreen menu where you deal with wi-fi and Bluetooth?
Center Button
I respect the simple functionality of the center button. It pops you in and out of apps quickly. But I feel like it can do more. It would have seemed more intuitive to have that turn on/wake the phone from sleep instead of adding another, superfluous button on the top right corner. Also, I’d rather use that as my camera shutter button than having a chunk of my screen covered up while taking pictures.
Photo Uploads
Photo uploading is totally downplayed on this phone. Limited to just uploading a photo at a time to a service at a time, when you do upload photos, you can’t tag or add captions for any of them using the Pre. Oh, and there’s no Flickr support—just Facebook and Photobucket. SERIOUS?!
Music Player
I’m not expecting the Pre’s music and media UI to be the second coming of the iPod by any means (and as it stands now, it actually comes pretty close) But having the option to scrub through a track is something that’s extremely basic, and convenient when you’re listening to a mix or podcast that’s in a single MP3. Having something to display track progress/overall time would be nice too.
Downloads From Browser
Having the ability to download selected files to a save folder is not so much something that Palm dropped the ball on, so much as it would be nice to have. MP3s currently stream, but you can’t save them. Images can only be saved when they’re attached to email. If music, pics and documents could be dispatched to an appropriate spot on the phone, Palm would have another plus over the iPhone. And if they threw video into that list, they’d make me swoon.
Amazon Store
WebOS only lets you download MP3s when you’re connected via wi-fi. Read that again. It’s absolutely ridiculous and should be fixed ASAP.
USB Connectivity
The USB handling on the Pre goes beyond inconvenient/annoying/unpolished and is just flat out bad. When you plug your Pre into a computer or any other device that lets you access its sync/mass storage mode, the cellular radio shuts down and the rest of the phone becomes inaccessible. I don’t know of any other smartphone (let alone cellphone) that does this and barring some highly technical excuse, it’s unforgivable.
Let me use my phone while syncing/transferring data. It’d also be nice if the phone had the ability to properly interface with car stereo’s via USB, but that’s of lesser concern.
Better Integrated Twitter
Tweed is a decent enough Twitter client, but having OS-level Twitter integration would be ideal. As it stands now, Tweed’s notifications are laggy at best and broken at worst, only popping up while the app is running (sometimes hours late). And there’s no sort of TwitPic functionality, which just seems silly. Surely you can do better, Palm.
Video Recording
Palm has vaguely insinuated video recording is coming in the future. Great. I’m sure they want to get their software and battery optimization right before dropping video recording on the general public, but at the very least, how about an update guys?
On-Screen Keyboard
The hardware keyboard really isn’t bad by any means. It’s not the most spacious keyboard in the world, but I have no major problems with it. That said, there are times you want to enter some text quickly without having to slide open the keyboard.
For example, while typing in a URL in landscape mode. How about an onscreen keyboard to use while the keyboard is hidden. And knowing that there’s limited real estate to work with in portrait mode, I’d even be up for one that only pops up landscape style.
Non-iTunes MP3 Playlist Support
Now that Apple hit the kill switch on the Pre’s ability to sync with iTunes, it’s time for Palm to start thinking of advanced options in a more general manner. One of these is supporting playlists across the board—not just from iTunes.
LED Flashlight
A simple app that would allow the led flash on back to be used as a light would be a nice little utility. Eh, eh?
Launcher
The whole vertical+horizontal scrolling of Launcher is something of a UI design fail. Palm should scrap the vertical scrolling and just create more screens that users can flick through. Palm should know they don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to every single aspect of WebOS.
Good News: Palm’s Working on the Pre’s Gaming Problem [Palm]
A June 29 job listing indicates that Palm plans to eventually rectify the Pre’s lack of gaming of powah—they’re looking for someone to “design, implement, debug, and optimize frameworks for game development” who has “knowledge of 3D graphics, including hardware graphics pipelines and programmable shaders.”
The bad news is that it suggests their gaming framework isn’t that far along, meaning badass games are still a ways off. [Mary-Margaret via Pre Central]
Houston-Hull, TX